The term “probiotics” was first introduced in 1953 by Werner Kollath. It is defined as “A live microbial feed supplement which beneficially affects the host animal by improving its intestinal microbial balance”. Subsequently, many probiotic products have been introduced in the market. The global probiotic products market was estimated at $24.23 billion in 2011. More than 500 probiotic F&B products have been introduced in the past decade.
Currently, Lactobacillus strains dominate the probiotics' market. Further, the marketed products containing Lactobacillus usually comprise a combination of 3-5 organisms. This combination is required since no single organism possesses desirable characteristics for probiotics namely, acidic stability, intestinal stability, stability in presence of bile, pancreatin and such like, good adhesion property and cholesterol reducing or lipid degradation property due to production of Bile salt hydrolase (BSH). Lactobacillus suffers from several drawbacks such as poor pH tolerance, poor bile tolerance and indifferent survival in gastric and intestinal juices. Therefore, there is a continuous quest for organisms with improved properties such as improved pH tolerance and better survival in gastric and intestinal juices. Further, the organisms with improved anti microbial properties will be an added benefit while proposing probiotic compositions.
Some more desirable characteristic of probiotic organisms include survival in presence of preservatives and BSH or Bile salt hydrolase, which is known to reduce serum cholesterol. This does not allow reabsorption of cholesterol and reduction of cholesterol by enterohepathic pathway. Therefore, increased BSH production is a desirable characteristic from a probiotic organism.
The Brevibacterium casei AP9 strain has been explored for the Biosyntheis of Cobalt oxide nano particles, as reported in an article titled “Extracellular Bacterial Synthesis of Protein-Functionalized Ferromagnetic Co3O4Nanocrystals and Imaging of Self-Organization of Bacterial Cells under Stress after Exposure to Metal Ions” by Umesh Kumar, Ashvini Shete, Arti S. Harle, Oksana Kasyutich, W. Schwarzacher, Archana Pundle and Pankaj Poddar in Nanobiotechnology Chem. Mater. 2008, 20, 1484-1491. But this organism has not been explored for its probiotic properties.
Thus, as per the above mentioned drawbacks of the hitherto reported prior arts, the inventors of the present invention realized that there is an unmet need in the art for probiotic microorganisms with better properties such as improved pH tolerance, enhanced survival in gastric and intestinal juices, while exhibiting improved anti-microbial properties and better BSH production activity.